Privacy Law Commons^™

The Human Right To Privacy, James Griffin

San Diego Law Review

To say much of interest about a particular human right, we have to know its content. So we have to know how to decide its content. That is where I shall start.

"I'Ve Got Nothing To Hide" And Other Misunderstandings Of Privacy, Daniel J. Solove

San Diego Law Review

In this short Article, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the nothing to hide argument. When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: "I've got nothing to hide." According to the nothing to hide argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The nothing to hide argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. In this essay, Solove critiques the nothing to hide …

Introduction To The 2007 Editors’ Symposium: Informational Privacy: Philosophical Foundations And Legal Implications, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

The outstanding collection of articles and comments thereon that follows this Introduction constitutes the 2007 Editors' Symposium of the San Diego Law Review. This year's theme is: "Informational Privacy: Philosophical Foundations and Legal Implications."

Does Warrantless Wiretapping Violate Moral Rights?, Evan Tsen Lee

San Diego Law Review

The controversy over the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program will not disappear any time soon. Legislators, policymakers, and academics should be thinking about whether and under what circumstances such surveillance should be illegal. A major factor in that decision is the moral status of such wiretapping. This essay, written for a symposium on moral rights to informational privacy, argues that two key determinants in the morality of warrantless wiretapping are (1) whether the subjects of the surveillance are known terrorists; and (2) whether the wiretapping is part of a pre-emptive surveillance program, or instead whether government operatives actually know of …

The Right To Privacy Unveiled, Samuel C. Rickless

San Diego Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to bring order to this theoretical chaos. In my view, none of these accounts of the right to privacy is accurate. As I will argue, we are better served by a completely different theoretical description of the relevant right. It is my hope that greater philosophical clarity in this area of ethics will lead to a more careful appreciation of the value of the right to privacy, as well as legislation and judicial reasoning that is more carefully crafted to protect against violations of the right. This Article is organized as follows: In Part …

Some Questions For The Barrier Theory, Alan Rubel

San Diego Law Review

Having set out the basics, Rickless considers several questions one might pose for the Barrier Theory. For example, must the barrier be solid? No. Must the barrier be erected by, rather than merely used by, the rightholder? No. Must the barrier be morally permissible in the first instance? No. While Rickless's answers seem correct, I think that they raise some concerns about the Barrier Theory.

Toward Informational Privacy Rights, Adam D. Moore

San Diego Law Review

In this paper I will offer several arguments in support of the view that individuals have moral claims to control personal information. Coupled with rights to control access to one's body, capacities, and powers, or physical privacy rights, we will have taken important steps toward a general right to privacy. In Part I, a definition of privacy is offered along with an account of the value of privacy. Simply put, privacy - defined as control over access to locations and information - is necessary for human well-being. In Part II, an attempt to move beyond claims of value to claims …

Separation, Risk, And The Necessity Of Privacy To Well-Being: A Comment On Adam Moore's Toward Informational Privacy Rights, Kenneth Einar Himma

San Diego Law Review

In this Article, I want to raise doubts about certain of Moore's premises in his argument defending information privacy rights. As always and I say this as a continuing admirer of his skill as a philosopher, information theorist, and legal theorist his argument is well thought out and persuasively written. But, as we will see, there are serious problems with each major plank of his schema for justifying privacy rights.

Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy Is Not An Absolute Value Or Right, Kenneth Einar Himma

San Diego Law Review

In this Article, I consider the scope of this right to informational privacy relative to our interests in security and argue, in particular, that the right to privacy must yield to these interests in the case of a direct conflict. I offer arguments from a number of different perspectives. I will, for example, begin with a case directly rooted in what I take to be ordinary case intuitions and then continue with an argument grounded in the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental value, which is thought to serve as a rough mark between what is important from a moral point …

Claims To Privacy And The Distributed Value View, Alan Rubel

San Diego Law Review

This Article is organized as follows. In Part II, I briefly explain my view of what privacy is - the particularized judgment account. I then turn to the question of privacy - value in Part III, where I examine several views prominent in the literature. In Part IV, I outline my view of privacy's value. I argue that, at its strongest, privacy has constitutive value, which is to say that privacy is a constituent part of intrinsically valuable states of affairs. However, in many cases, privacy's value is not morally weighty. Unlike other goods to which privacy is compared, I …

Invisible Actors: Genetic Testing And Genetic Discrimination In The Workplace, Susannah Carr

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Current federal and state law is inadequate to protect employees from employer's misuse of their genetic information. Genetic information is knowledge of a person's genome that indicates a predisposition towards an illness, disease, or medical condition, where symptoms of the condition have yet to manifest themselves. Federal law protections are insufficient, and relevant state laws vary in their scope and application. Not only are employees unevenly protected across the United States, but varying standards also make complying with the law difficult for interstate employees.

To give employees sufficient protection and to facilitate employer compliance, Congress should pass a law specifically …

Balancing Freedom Of Speech With The Right To Privacy: How To Legally Cope With The Funeral Protest Problem , Anna Zwierz Messar

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Network Neutrality: Justifiable Discrimination, Unjustifiable Discrimination, And The Bright Line Between Them, Noel Semple

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper proposes a bright line test to guide the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (‘‘CRTC’’) in regulating ‘‘network neutrality’’. When Internet service providers seek to discriminate between uses and users in administering their networks, the CRTC should ask whether the proposed discrimination is a reasonable effort to make the price paid by each user commensurate to the demands which his or her use places on the network. Discrimination which meets this description should be tolerated if not actively encouraged, because it encourages the economically efficient allocation of scarce bandwidth. All other forms of ISP discrimination — including discrimination based …

The Adverse Economic Effects Of Spectrum Set-Asides, Robert W. Crandall, Allan T. Ingrahm

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In February 2007, Industry Canada released a consultation that outlined a proposed auction design for spectrum Ifor Advanced Wireless Services. As part of its consultation, Industry Canada contemplated a spectrum set-aside in the AWS auction to facilitate the entry of a new wireless service provider in Canada; however, it noted that a potential drawback of a spectrum set-aside is that it can induce uneconomic entry into the market. In this paper, we show that a set-aside for AWS spectrum in Canada is more likely to result in uneconomic entry than in a viable domestic entrant into the Canadian wireless industry. …

You Must Remember This: The Copyright Conundrum Of "Translation Memory" Databases, Francie Gow

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Translation memory databases (compilations of texts linked with their translations) can be valuable resources in the process of translating subsequent texts. This article explores the circumstances under which such compilations might be considered sufficiently original to attract copyright protection that is independent of any copyright already subsisting in the underlying translations and source texts. Various characteristics of the tools and the translation industry in general make the analysis highly fact-specific; whether particular translation memory databases attract protection, and, if so, who can claim to be their ‘‘authors’’, must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Any protection that is granted may …

Electronic Records As Documentary Evidence, Ken Chasse

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The new electronic record provisions that are now part of almost all of the Evidence Acts in Canada are as important as any statutory law or common law concerning the use of records as evidence. They bring six important improvements to the evidentiary law of business records. It is argued, however, that their most serious defects are that they: (1) perpetuate the best evidence rule — a rule rendered redundant by electronic records and information management (RIM); (2) do not deal with hearsay issues; (3) do not cure the defects of the business record provisions in regard to electronic records; …

Second Class For The Second Time: How The Commercial Speech Doctrine Stigmatizes Commercial Use Of Aggregated Public Records, Brian N. Larson, Genelle I. Belmas

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that access to aggregated electronic public records for commercial use should receive protection under the First Amendment in the same measure as the speech acts the access supports. In other words, we view commercial access to aggregated public records as an essential means to valuable speech. For many, however, the taint of the commercial speech doctrine is turning all “information flows” into commercial ones. This, in turn, is threatening the access to government records.

Electronic Health Records: Interoperability Challenges Patients' Right To Privacy, Laura Dunlop

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

President George W. Bush's administration has outlined initial necessary steps to transform the healthcare delivery system through adoption of interoperable electronic health records ("EHRs") by the year 2014. This Article examines the nation's shift toward the use of EHR technology, which largely facilitates patient care by providing clinicians with the ability to review a more complete medical record at the time of treatment. Current legislation calls for financial support and technical standards. However, lawmakers neglect to fully address the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA") and the need to expand its application and enforcement. In addition, healthcare provider Anti-Kickback …

L'Affaire Xm Satellite Radio: La Légalité Des Appareils Qui Enregistrent La Radio Par Satellite, René Pépin

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Aux Etats-Unis, la radio par satellite existe depuis le nouveau millénaire. Mais les compagnies qui œuvrent dans ce domaine font face depuis 2006 a des poursuites devant les tribunaux par les grandes compagnies de disques. Elles paient pourtant les tarifs convenus avec les entreprises qui s’occupent de gestion collective des droits d’auteur sur les disques. Le probleme vient du fait que depuis leur entrée en ondes, des progrès technologiques leur permettent d’offrir à leurs abonnés des appareils qui sont bien plus polyvalents qu’un simple appareil radio récepteur. Les nouveaux modèles peuvent enregistrer plusieurs heures d'émissions, et ils peuvent transmettre à …

Virtual Property, Real Law: The Regulation Of Property In Video Games, Susan H. Abramovitch, David L. Cummings

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article considers property created and used in the virtual realm of video games, which is often given real- T world value. From the unauthorized copying of designer clothes sold on Second Life for in-game cash, to real court damages awarded against game operators’ deletion of player-earned swords on Mir 3, a bridge has been taking shape from video gaming’s virtual economies to real-world economies. However, virtual property created in virtual worlds has yet to be formally recognized by North American courts or legislatures. This article attempts to touch on some of the legal considerations paramount in determining how such …

Authorizing Copyright Infringement And The Control Requirement: A Look At P2p File-Sharing And Distribution Of New Technology In The U.K., Australia, Canada, And Singapore, Jeffrey C.J. Lee

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The doctrine of authorizing copyright infringement has been used to deal with the marketing of new Ttechnology that might be employed by a user to infringe copyright, from the distribution of blank cassette tapes and double-cassette tape recorders to photocopiers. It is being tested yet again with the distribution of peer-to-peer file-sharing software that enables the online exchange of MP3 music and other copyrighted files. This article looks at the different positions adopted in several Commonwealth jurisdictions, and examines the policy considerations behind these positions. It looks at, in particular, the recent Australian case of Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd. …

Mission Creep: Public Health Surveillance And Medical Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

The National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program has parallels in the growth of disease surveillance for public health purposes. This article explores whether laws requiring health providers to report to government names and identifiable information about patients with infectious or chronic diseases may be vulnerable to challenge as an invasion of privacy. A shift in the use of disease surveillance data from investigating disease outbreaks to data mining and analysis for research, budgeting, and policy planning, as well as bioterrorism, tests the boundaries of liberty and privacy. The Supreme Court has not reviewed a disease reporting law. Its few related …

Student Rights: From In Loco Parentis To Sine Parentibus And Back Again? Understanding The Family Educational Rights And Privacy Act In Higher Education, Britton White

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The State Secrets Privilege And The Abdication Of Oversight, Jared Perkins

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Follow That Car! Legal Issues Arising From Installation Of Tracking Devices In Leased Consumer Goods And Equipment, Leah Altaras

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Recent court cases in Connecticut and California have challenged the commercial use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for tracking and gathering data about consumers. Specifically, these cases focused on the terms and disclosures contained in automobile rental contracts relating to the use of GPS to monitor the driving patterns of rental car drivers. In response to concerns about consumer privacy, several states have also enacted legislation that addresses the use of tracking technology in the rental car market. This Article examines recent litigation concerning the use of GPS in rental cars and related legislative efforts. Although recent legislation and litigation …

Newsgathering In Light Of Hipaa, Alexander A. Boni-Saenz

All Faculty Scholarship

This short piece examines the interaction between the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law designed to protect the privacy of individuals’ health information, and state Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, which are designed to ensure public access to government documents. It describes three recent cases from different states that addressed difficult issues about where and how to draw the line between the public’s right to know and individuals’ rights to keep their medical information secret. It concludes that questions about the interaction of state FOI laws and HIPAA should be guided by the framework suggested in …

Personal Data Privacy Tradeoffs And How A Swedish Church Lady, Austrian Public Radio Employees, And Transatlantic Air Carriers Show That Europe Does Not Have All The Answers, Edward C. Harris

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reservoirs Of Danger: The Evolution Of Public And Private Law At The Dawn Of The Information Age, Danielle Keats Citron

Faculty Scholarship

A defining problem at the dawn of the Information Age will be securing computer databases of ultra-sensitive personal information. These reservoirs of data fuel our Internet economy but endanger individuals when their information escapes into the hands of cyber-criminals. This juxtaposition of opportunities for rapid economic growth and novel dangers recalls similar challenges society and law faced at the outset of the Industrial Age. Then, reservoirs collected water to power textile mills: the water was harmless in repose but wrought havoc when it escaped. After initially resisting Rylands v. Fletcher’s strict liability standard as undermining economic development, American courts …

The Structure Of Search Engine Law, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

This Article provides a road map to issues of search engine law. It indicates what questions we must consider when thinking about search engines, and it indicates the interconnections among those questions. It does not endorse any particular normative framework for search. Nor does it recommend who should regulate search. Instead, it provides the necessary foundation for informed decision-making, by whatever regulator and whatever its normative approach.

Part I will explain how modern search engines function and describe the business environment within which they operate. Search engine operations can be understood in terms of the information flows among four principal …

Tracking Rfid, Jonathan Weinberg

Law Faculty Research Publications

RFID-Radio Frequency Identification-is a powerful enabling technology with a wide range of potential applications. Its proponents initially overhyped its capabilities and business case: RFID deployment is proceeding along a much slower and less predictable trajectory than was initially thought. Nonetheless, in the end it is plausible that we will find ourselves moving in the direction of a world with pervasive RFID: a world in which objects' wireless self-identification will become much more nearly routine, and networked devices will routinely collect and process the resulting information.

RFID-equipped goods and documents present privacy threats: they may reveal information about themselves, and hence …